Thursday is Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays. I am off visiting family and reading/writing (plays) all week! That’s right, I’m taking a blog vacation. I will be back next week, and I hope that everyone stays safe and feels thankful!

We are creatures of habit, and as such, patterns of our activities make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Our bodies settle into things, and embrace the rhythm. Nice, right? I’m starting to think that this isn’t always optimal for writing.

The reason is, is that if you want to write and get paid enough money to live from this writing, you basically have to eat, sleep, and then eat more writing. And in addition to all that writing, you need to also be rewriting, submitting, reading, seeing shows, seeing your shows, talking to other writers, and probably exercising so that your body doesn’t fall apart when you’re trying to accomplish all the things. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when I can write the way I dream of writing… At school there are a few cushioned booths in the cafeteria, and I love setting up camp there with my head phones and plowing through some pages. But sometimes other people are sitting there (the nerve, I know), or other times I forget my head phones, or sometimes I don’t make it out to school early enough to write before class. I also love writing after my kids go to bed, and before my husband gets home from work. But guess what? Sometimes they don’t go to sleep! Sometimes, he gets home early! Life happens. Life happens all the time, and since we can’t stop life from taking us on twists and turns, we need to just roll with it and write whenever we are given the chance. Even if at that time we don’t feel like writing, especially when you don’t feel like writing. We need to write when we don’t have any good ideas, and you need to just keep writing crap ideas trust that the good ideas will come.

Writing is a craft, and it’s a craft that has to be practiced a whole lot, like all other crafts. And I don’t think it’s always helpful to have a huge romantic ritual associated with writing. Well, no, so I suppose the ritual is fine, because plans are nice, but if those plans fall through, you should write anyway. Or working in anyway you can. I have a system, where I can always be doing some business no matter what the distraction level my house is at. When alone, I try to write fresh words, because often for me first drafts are the hardest, when one kid is home I’ll research, or work on a second or third (or eleventh) draft of a script, when both of my kids are home I’ll look up submission opps and try to get cover letters and all that busy work done, and when my husband and the kids are all home (which is usually my least productive), I try and curl up with books and plays and see how other people do it.

My point is, sure, have a plan, but have a back-up plan if the first one doesn’t happen. Also, have ten backups in case the first 9 don’t happen. There’s a lot of work involved with being a writer, and if you want to do it for $$$ you better start working a much around the clock as you can. So maybe don’t throw the rituals away, maybe alter them so that they enable you to work harder, work longer, and work smarter. Then write, write, write! And then, write some more.

Today which started out being all about laundry, dishes, and making my house livable again, actually turned into a very productive writing day. Isn’t it great when things sneak up on you like that? Yesterday I started putting words down for next year’s Monster play Geryon, and then today I fixed what I had written and wrote a bunch more! And even better, I came up to walls because I realized that there were a few choices I needed to make before continuing! I also got a few books about small towns after I got many fabulous recommendations from friends, and so I am feeling great about my monster!

Also, I fixed a lot of problems with Rosie, Bloody Rosie! My lady-killer horror-play. And I kept trading back and forth which play I tinkered with, as I was faced with questions, and they were two really fun worlds to bounce back and forth from. AND, I’ve been told by the great Anthony Clarvoe that when you can procrastinate writing one play by working on another, you’re in pretty good shape. So hooray for writing!

The final four readings for The San Francisco Olympians Festival IV: Trojan Requiem happen this week! If you’ve made it to see some of the readings earlier in the festival, you already know what a great night of theater these can be, and if you haven’t yet made it out, you only have a few chances left!

Wednesday, 11/20 THE TOOLS at 8pm.

Eight new short plays surrounding the objects of the Trojan War (RSVP through facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/626554024056568/)

The evening includes:

GOLDEN APPLES I or “Kalisti” by Helen Noakes, directed by Robert Estes

THE HELMET by Meg O’Connor, directed by Robert Estes

THE SWORD by Tracy Held Potter, directed by Robert Estes

THE SPEAR by Neil Higgins, directed by Robert Estes

THE BOW by Sunil Patel, directed by Charles Lewis III

THE SHIELD by Meg O’Connor, directed by Charles Lewis III

THE SHIPS or “Alexis, the Bronze Age Warship” by Tracy Held Potter, directed by Charles Lewis III

GOLDEN APPLES II by Allison Page, directed by Charles Lewis III

Thursday, 11/21 THE BATTLEFIELD at 8pm

Two new one-act plays covering the place the war happened. (RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/177309422459586/ and/or here: https://www.facebook.com/events/182302725289751/)

More about each play:

“”On the Plains of Ilium” by Jeremy Cole, featuring an ensemble of eight actors, who give voice to the plains themselves – rock, soil, stream, grass, brush, tree, wind and cloud – as they struggle to keep the ancient stories alive. Their memories, however, are imperfect and occasionally at odds with one another. What arises is an alternately sad and humorous look at heroes long departed, and an indictment of the memories held by those who remain.”

Directed by Jonathan Carpenter.

And…

“The Immortal Wall of Troy — Ancient Mother Goddess Cybele, “born of stone, boundary between that which is known and unknown” – meets Poseidon, the gorgeous young upstart Olympian, and their rocky love story survives the Trojan War, the Kocktapus, and a faulty GPS to dance the EARTHQUAKE STOMP to a new and better Olympus. ”

Written by Madeline Puccioni, directed by Jonathan Carpenter.

Friday, 11/22 THE REASON at 8pm

“Ellen’s Undone,” a full-length play based on Helen of Troy by Sam Hurwitt. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1421970784683978/.

“Theatre Bay Area editor-in-chief and Bay Area theater critic Sam Hurwitt makes his playwriting debut with a staged reading of his full-length play “Ellen’s Undone,” based on the story of Helen of Troy, as part of The San Francisco Olympians Festival IV: Trojan Requiem!

We have an amazing team assembled for “Ellen’s Undone,” which will star Maggie Mason and Armando McClain, directed by Mina Morita. For more info about the play and Sam’s take on Helen, check out http://www.sfolympians.com/?page_id=1302”

Saturday, 11/23 THE HORSE at 8pm

Finally, closing this year’s festival we have See Also All a new full-length play by Stuart Bousel, the founder of the San Francisco Olympians Festival. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/453801974737069/.

“Around a bonfire on an empty plain, a man tells a boy a story, that may or may not be their own story, about a pair of brothers who declare war on one another, after handsome Paris steals the wife of King Menelaus: Helen, who may or may not be a head on a stick. Woven into the tale of the war are the trials of the prophetess Cassandra, the marriage of peace-loving Andromache to valiant but doomed Prince Hector, the rise and fall of the heroic Achilles and his beloved companion Patroclus, and the twin struggles of Odysseus and Aeneas, both visionaries of their time, to protect their families from a sea of troubles while the gods of Olympus attend divine cocktail parties in heaven and battle one another on the earth. Along the way the Apocolypse may or may not occur as an incidental result of one particularly rash decision.

For eight years now I have been working on a dramatic adaptation of the Trojan War myths. It’s my favorite cycle in all of mythology, and the one which most influenced not just how I write, but how I think and relate to the world and our place in it. Though on the surface this play is an experimental retelling of the Trojan War from beginning to end, it’s also a meditation on identity, literature, duty, God, love, betrayal, death, fear, loyalty and survival. It’s less about a war than it is about the war within any given human being, between who they are, who they aspire to be, and what role they are forced to play by the circumstances of their life. It’s the darkest play I’ve written at the end of a period of writing dark plays, and also the most hopeful and, I think, the beginning of a more light-hearted period in my work.”

Written by Stuart Bousel, directed by Ariel Craft.

ALL shows are at the The Exit Theater (156 Eddy St, San Francisco, California), starting at 8pm. Tickets can be purchased at the door, $10, cash only (no advance tickets!).

I have the wild and crazy goal of making it out for each of these evening, we will see if that is possible as the week progresses. You should come though, you should come and watch, and be impressed by the local artists creating new work where you live! It’ll make you a happier person, I promise.

I’m rewriting, really I am. I was working away in my room when Audrey, my five year old daughter, walked in and announced that she wanted to write a play. Since she can’t write or type yet, that means I had to put my script down and write hers. Things you do for love.

The Dinosaur And The Princess Play by Audrey Kessinger

Characters:

Princess, female, six years old, she wears pretty dresses.

Dinosaur, male, seven years old, he wears suits

Time/Place:

The past. A park

A park. PRINCESS and DINOSAUR are on stage.

PRINCESS Do you want to be my friend?

DINOSAUR Yes. What are you?

PRINCESS I’m a princess, but I don’t know what you are.

DINOSAUR I’m a dinosaur.

PRINCESS Do you want to play with me?

DINOSAUR Yes.

PRINCESS What do you want to play?

DINOSAUR I want to play hide and go seek.

PRINCESS What do you want to play hide and go seek after?

DINOSAUR I want to play chase after hide and go seek. Now can we play hide and go seek?

PRINCESS Yes. I’ll hide first, and then you can hide.

DINOSAUR closes eyes. PRINCESS hides on stage.

DINOSAUR One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, ready or not, here I come.

DINOSAUR runs and finds PRINCESS.

PRINCESS Can we go and play in the sandbox?

DINOSAUR Yes we can.

PRINCESS and DINOSAUR go to the sandbox. PRINCESS picks up a shovel.

DINOSAUR (CONTINUED) Can I please have the shovel?

PRINCESS No.

DINOSAUR grabs the shovel, PRINCESS and DINOSAUR both pull at the shovel.

DINOSAUR I want it!

PRINCESS I want it!

DINOSAUR I want it!

PRINCESS I want it!

DINOSAUR I want it!

PRINCESS loses HER grip on the shovel and falls into the sand.

PRINCESS I remember something. I remember that we said to play chase! Let’s go play chase now.

PRINCESS runs all over the park, DINOSAUR chases PRINCESS.

PRINCESS (CONTINUED) Let’s go tell our moms that we played chase.

End of play.

All week I’ve been tweaking Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats after hearing it on Saturday, and today, JUST NOW, I’ve figured out a major problem that has plagued from from day one. Oh, I’m so excited! I’m hoping that the idea pans out and does what I want it to, because then friends, it’ll be one step closer to production ready!

I’m diving in guys, see you when my next draft is done.

The musical theater month plays have been selected! PlayGround’s 5th Annual Musical Theatre Night: S’Wonderful! S’Marvelous! will include:

A Beautiful Evening by Madeleine Butler (“Love Walked In”)

Someone To Watch Over Me by Patricia Cotter (“Someone To Watch Over Me”)

Just for the Length of a Sigh by Josh Senyak (“How Long Has This Been Going On”)

Love Doctor, Heal Thyself by Tanya Grove (“But Not For Me”)

The Man I Love by Tom Swift (“The Man I Love”)

Love Spacewalked In by Maury Zeff (“Love Walked In”)

This will be an evening NOT to be missed, as it will include the regular PlayGround magic AND a piano on stage! That just sounds delightful, doesn’t it?

Get your tickets here: http://networkedblogs.com/QVqbJ

“Wealth comes from being best at what you are.”

Juan Castro

I found out today that my acting coach and mentor Juan Castro died from cancer last night. It is safe to say that he taught me everything that I know about acting, and although I stay back stage more often now, his lessons still impact what I bring to my craft. He talked about responsibility and hard work, and he pushed his students to take on roles that were challenging and difficult. He taught us that no matter what we were faced with, thinking positively would help get us through it. And that you can always be better, and you should never stop trying to be better.

He talked about how art can bring communities together, and build people up. That, like air, we need art in order to live. And that one day he was going to start a revolution with art and love. He was strict, and hard on his students, and along with Kris Clark created an environment where hundreds and hundreds of students flourished and grew, not only as artists but as people.

It’s been years since I’ve seen him. I was waiting to send him a really well written play, I wanted it to be perfect so that he would be proud of me, and know that I had listened when he spoke. I hope that he knew how much he was loved and appreciated. And I hope that he is now at peace.

Honor the Gods,

Honor your team,

Bleed on the field,

Silence your scream.

IT’S GAME DAY! The reading of Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats is tonight, kickoff at 8pm, $10 tickets (cash only) at the door. Come out and see what I’ve been working on all year, my version of the legend of Achilles, complete with football, enslaved cheerleaders, and Helen as a bovine mascot.

It’s a no-brainer, really. The only thing you have to ask yourself is this: Will you root for the Trojans of the Greeks?

Because it all comes down to tonight!

The Exit Theater is located at 156 Eddy St in San Francisco, and if you need additional info check out the facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/166435956886604/

AND FOR GODS’ SAKE, REMEMBER TO SHAKE IT, REMEMBER TO SPARKLE!

The topic has been announced for PlayGround’s November musical theater month, and this time there’s a twist! Instead of writing original songs we are to use and/or be inspired by one of 13 songs from Ira and George Gershwin. If you’re curious or would like to write your own play based on this prompt, here are the songs:

1. But Not For Me
2. Embraceable You
3. Fascinatin’ Rhythm
4. Funny Face
5. How Long Has This Been Going On
6. Lady Be Good
7. Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off
8. Love Walked In
9. Our Love Is Here To Stay
10. Someone To Watch Over Me
11. Strike Up The Band
12. S’Wonderful
13. They Can’t Take That Away From Me

We will have a piano on stage and a very talented musician, Steve Sanders, playing for us. This is going to be a great evening, the show will go up on Monday, November 18th, I’d recommend getting your tickets now! Do that here: http://www.playground-sf.org/boxoffice/

Now I’ve got to get to writing!

OH! And don’t forget, TOMORROW IS THE READING OF Under The Gods’ Golden Cleats! See you at 8! Check the facebook event page for details: https://www.facebook.com/events/166435956886604/